Camelot the Musical George Gershwin Theatre - Opened 21 Jun 1993, closed 7 Aug 1993 What was your favourite production? Add your thoughts in the comments box Synopsis Young King Arthur is worried about his upcoming arranged marriage to Guenevere, whom he has never met. Merlyn the Magician persuades him to accept his new bride, but Arthur still reluctantly hides in the woods, pondering what his subjects think of him (“I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight”). Guenevere arrives in the woods and Arthur overhears her also doubting her wedding, preferring instead to maintain the “Simple Joys of Maidenhood.” Arthur introduces himself as “Wart” (his childhood nickname), and extols the virtues of “Camelot” to Guenevere. She is charmed by his appearance and demeanour, and they nearly share a kiss, before his servants arrive and reveal him as King Arthur. She agrees to marry him without reservations. Meanwhile, Merlyn is beginning to die and worries that he has forgotten to warn Arthur about Mordred and Lancelot, who will prove to be his undoing.

Arthur alongside Guenevere decides to create a new order of knights who will be dedicated to virtue rather than looting. They will be called the Knights of the Round Table and they soon become legendary throughout the lands. A young, arrogant Frenchman named Lancelot arrives seeking to join the order, as he believes himself to be the bravest knight in the world (“C’est Moi”). The Queen has organized a May Day celebration (“The Lusty Month of May”), where she meets Lancelot and instantly dislikes him. Lancelot soon makes enemies of most of the knights, and three challenge him to a duel. He manages to defeat them all and wins over the favour of the crowd. Guinevere too finds herself attracted to him despite her love for Arthur. Lancelot too is torn between the beautiful Queen and his duty to the King. Unbeknownst to them, Arthur has picked up on their mutual attraction but decides not to do anything to upset the order of the Round Table. Years pass, and Guenevere and Lancelot still struggle with their unrequited love (“If Ever I Would Leave You”).

Arthur’s illegitimate son, Mordred, arrives in Camelot, determined to take over the kingdom and destroy the Round Table. Arthur and Guenevere begin to tire of the difficulty running a kingdom (“What Do the Simple Folk Do?”), whilst the knights are growing sick of their virtuous lives (“Fie on Goodness!”). Mordred uses their malaise to turn them against Arthur. Lancelot is unable to resist the Queen any longer and visits her bedchamber at night (“I Loved You Once in Silence”). They kiss passionately before being interrupted by Mordred and some of the knights who arrest them both for treason. Lancelot manages to escape, but Guenevere is tried and sentenced to be burned at the stake. Arthur is torn between saving his kingdom and saving the love of his life. He watches as Lancelot manages to rescue his queen just before she is burned to death. Arthur reluctantly realises he must fight Lancelot for the sake of his kingdom, and Camelot is torn apart by the resulting civil war. Before the final battle, he meets Guenevere and Lancelot alone. Their relationship has fallen apart, and they both agree to face justice in England. Arthur refuses and forgives them.

Guenevere departs for a convent, while Lancelot returns to his troops. Heartbroken, Arthur comes across a young boy who has travelled to Camelot to become a knight of the Round Table.

Moved by the boy’s idealism, Arthur knights him and sends him back to England, urging him to tell the tale of the perfect kingdom that once existed named “Camelot.” Songs I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight The Simple Joys of Maidenhood Camelot End of Study Scene: Camelot (Reprise) C’est Moi The Lusty Month of May Pellinor’s Entrance Take Me to the Fair The Lusty Month of May (Reprise) Change of Scene (from Act I Scene 5 to 6) How to Handle a Women Tent Scene Change of Scene (from Act I Scene 8 to 9) Before I Gaze at You Again Finale Act I (Proposition / Resolution) Act II If Ever I Would Leave You The Seven Deadly Virtues Change of Scene (from Act II Scene 1 to 2) What Do the Simple Folk Do Enchanted Forest Change of Scene (from Act II Scene 4 to 5) Fie On Goodness Change of Scene and Incidental Music I Loved You Once in Silence I Loved You Once In Silence (Tag) Guenevere Frequently Asked Questions about the Arthurian Legends | Robbins Library Digital Projects Robbins Library Digital Projects › Camelot Project › Frequently Asked Questions about the

 Arthurian Legends › Frequently Asked Questions about the Arthurian Legends Frequently Asked Questions about the Arthurian Legends by: Alan Lupack (Author) [The following are questions frequently asked of librarians who provide "chat" reference service in Rush Rhees Library at the University of Rochester.

The answers have been provided by Alan Lupack (alupack@library.rochester.edu) .] Who was King Arthur and when/where did he live? Is there historical evidence of his existence? Traditionally called King Arthur, an early chronicler called Nennius refers to him as 'dux bellorum', a term designating a military leader rather than a king. Nennius also names Arthur as the victor in a series of twelve battles against the Saxons, which culminate in a decisive victory at Mount Badon. The early Welsh tale Culhwch and Olwen depicts him as the leader of a group of semi-mythological warriors with super powers. Welsh saints's lives sometimes portray him as an enemy of the church, who commandeers its treasures to support his wars. How much, if any, historicity can be assigned to Arthur is a matter of debate. Some have suggested that a person who lived earlier than or contemporary with the time usually associated with Arthur (the late 5th or early 6th century) performed deeds that became attached to a fictional 'Arthur'.

Geoffrey Ashe, for example, has called attention to a figure referred to as 'Riothamus', a title meaning 'high king', who led an army to the continent and who, Ashe speculates, may have been associated with Arthur by Geoffrey of Monmouth (the author of a "history" of the kings of Britain, a work which introduces into the tradition many fictional elements that are now seen as essential parts of the story of Arthur). (Ashe puts forth this theory in The Discovery of King Arthur [1985].) Other scholars believe that the Arthurian legends are not based on any real person. If Arthur or someone who inspired the legends of Arthur did exist, he would have been a warrior of the late fifth and/or early sixth centuries and not the sort of person often depicted in literature, a king living in a castle with knights in shining armor serving him. Who was Guinevere? Did King Arthur have other lovers? Guinevere is Arthur's wife and queen; according to the Vulgate Cycle and Malory, she is the daughter of Leodegrance of Carmelide.

Though one of the Welsh Triads (Triad 56) speaks of Arthur's three great queens (all named Gwenhwyfar), later romance generally gives him only one wife named Guinevere. Geoffrey of Monmouth introduces the notion of Guinevere's infidelity (with Modred) while Arthur is fighting on the continent. In Chrétien's Lancelot, Guinevere becomes Lancelot's lover after he rescues her from Meleagant. Generally (though not always) in the romance tradition, Guinevere is portrayed as Lancelot's lover. In the Vulgate Cycle, the first meeting between Guinevere and Lancelot is arranged by Galehaut. She is later accused of not being the true Guinevere by the illegitimate daughter of her father Leodagan and the wife of his seneschal. When Arthur falls in love with the False Guinevere and accepts her as his queen, Guinevere is protected by Lancelot and Galehaut until the truth is revealed. Malory's Guinevere is jealous and demanding but also a true lover. Her jealousy and anger drive Lancelot mad and lead her to say she wishes he were dead.

Nevertheless, she remains true to him. She is accused several times of crimes-infidelity and the murder of Mador's relative-and must be saved by Lancelot, as she is once again when their love is discovered and she is sentenced to be burned at the stake. When Mordred rebels against Arthur and attempts to marry her, she flees first to the Tower of London and then to the nunnery at Amesbury, where she becomes abbess. Lancelot visits her there after the death of Arthur, but she asks him to leave and never to return and refuses even to give him a final kiss. She dies a holy death, of which Lancelot learns in a vision that instructs him to have her buried next to Arthur. While Malory is understanding of the true love of Guinevere, Tennyson makes her an example of an unfaithful wife. Arthur, before whom she grovels with guilt when he visits her in the nunnery, says that she has "spoilt the purpose of my life." Malory also writes that Arthur had an affair with Lyonors, the daughter of Earl Sanam. Lyonors bears him a son named Borre, who later becomes a knight of the Round Table.

Who was Merlin and what is his significance to King Arthur? Merlin plays many roles in Arthurian literature, including bard, prophet, magician, advisor, and warrior. Though usually a figure who supports Arthur and his vision of Camelot, Merlin is, because of the stories in which he is said to be the son of a devil, sometimes presented as a villain. Celtic tradition contains a number of related figures-the Welsh Myrddin, the Scottish Lailoken, and the Irish Suibhne-who have characteristics similar to those of Merlin. These characters all go mad and become wild men of the woods. Myrddin, who appears in the Welsh poems 'Yr Afallennau' ('The Apple Tree Stanzas') and 'Yr Oianau' ('The Little Pig Stanzas'), is driven mad because of the death of his lord Gwenddolau at the hands of Rhydderch in the Battle of Arfderydd (c. 575). After the battle, Merlin lives in exile in the forest, where he utters prophecies.

Geoffrey of Monmouth combines this historical figure, who lived at a time later than that in which a historical Arthur might have lived, with the figure of the youth Ambrosius Aurelianus from Nennius (Geoffrey says that Merlin's second name was Ambrosius); in so doing, he virtually creates the now-traditional Merlin. Geoffrey's Merlin, who is fathered by an incubus, explains why Vortigern's tower will not stand and utters a long series of prophecies. He then serves both Aurelius and Uther. After transporting the Giant's Dance from Ireland to Britain and setting it up as Stonehenge, he assists Uther in satisfying his lust for Ygerna. In Geoffrey's account, Merlin does not serve as an advisor to Arthur; but later writers expand his role to include helping Arthur become king and establish his authority. In the works of Robert de Boron and in the Vulgate Cycle, Merlin's birth is engineered by the devils in hell. They hope to bring into the world an anti-Christ who will undo the good (or, as they see it, the harm) done by Christ in redeeming mankind.

Merlin's mother is impregnated by an incubus; but with the advice of her confessor Blaise she baptizes her son; and he becomes a force for good, not evil. Since he is the son of a devil, he is endowed with the knowledge of all things past, and God bestows on him the gift of knowing the future. He is also instrumental in establishing Arthur's realm and the Round Table, and he serves as an adviser to Athur. Merlin's service to Arthur ends when he is infatuated with Niniane (also called Vivien and Nyneve) and allows her to seal him up with a charm that he himself has taught her. Perhaps the most influential modern recasting of Merlin is in T. H. White's The Once and Future King (1958). White's Merlin, who is both a comic and a philosophic figure, is a tutor who encourages Arthur to think for himself and who is gratified when Arthur arrives at the notion that might should be used for right. White's Merlin knows the future because he lives backwards in time. Who are Bedivere? Gawain? Mordred? What is their relationship to King Arthur?

Bedivere: Bedivere and Kay (Bedwyr and Cai in Welsh sources) are among the warriors earliest associated with Arthur. The author of Culhwch and Olwen (ca. 1100) says of Bedwyr that he never shrank from any enterprise on which Cai was bound. Wace says that Bedivere and Kay are Arthur's two most loyal subjects. In the late fourteenth-century Alliterative Morte Arthure and other works that tell the story of the Giant of St. Michael's Mount, Kay and Bedivere accompany Arthur as he sets out to confront the giant. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Arthur gives Bedevere the province of Normandy for his service in the war in Gaul; later, Bedevere is slain in Arthur's continental war against Lucius. In Malory's Morte d'Arthur, Bedivere survives the continental wars and is with Arthur at the end of his final battle. Arthur orders him to return Excalibur to the lake. Tennyson adds to Malory's account a depiction of Bedivere watching the barge bearing Arthur as it grows smaller and smaller and finally disappears.

In Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset and in Mary Stewart's The Wicked Day, Bedwyr takes on the role, usually assigned to Lancelot, of lover of Arthur's queen. Gawain: Gawain is Arthur's nephew, and in much Arthurian literature he is presented as the best of Arthur's knights. In a number of sources, his strength is said to increase until noon, at which point it begins to wane. According to the French Mort Artu (Death of Arthur), his strength increases around noon because the priest who baptized him prayed that his strength would increase at noon, the hour he was baptized. Malory says that a holy man gave Gawain the gift of increasing strength from undern (9 a. m.) until noon every day of the year. In Geoffrey of Monmouth's history, Gawain is one of Arthur's most valorous knights in his continental wars, and he dies in the struggle against Modred when Arthur returns to Britain.

The author of The Rise of Gawain (twelfth century) tells of Gawain's being brought to Rome by Viamundus, the fisherman who stole the boy from the merchants to whom Anna, his mother, had entrusted him because he was born before she was married to Loth (Lot). There, he is knighted by and serves the Emperor. Gawain is said by Chrétien in his Perceval (1180s) to be the most courteous knight in the world. In this work, and in numerous others by various authors, Gawain is contrasted to Kay, whose boorishness is a foil to Gawain's courtliness. In several Dutch romances, Gawain is called the Father of Adventure, and he has great skill in healing as well as in fighting and diplomacy. In many of the French romances of the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries, Gawain is the most important hero; but Lancelot eventually replaces him in this role. In the thirteenth-century Vulgate Cycle, Gawain is presented as the second-best worldly knight after Lancelot.

He refuses to join in Agravain's accusation against Lancelot and Guinevere; later, out of grief for his brothers-particularly his favorite Gaheriet (Gareth)-who are slain in the rescue of the queen, he insists on pursuing and fighting with Lancelot. Although Lancelot refuses to slay him when he has the opportunity, Gawain ultimately dies from a head wound received in their fight. Nevertheless, before his death Gawain realizes that Lancelot was the best and most generous knight, wishes he could ask his forgiveness before his death, and advises Arthur to ask him for help. In Malory's Morte d'Arthur, Gawain is at times brave and noble and at times vengeful and treacherous. He keeps alive the feud between the house of Lot and the house of Pellinore by treacherously killing Pellinore and then Lamorak. He is also unforgiving when Lancelot accidentally kills Gareth, and he refuses to allow Arthur to make peace with him. He does, however, try to dissuade Mordred and Agravain from accusing Lancelot; and he finally realizes that Lancelot is noble and Mordred wicked.

Mordred: The Annales Cambriae (Welsh Annals) mentions Medraut as a participant in the battle of Camlann but does not make clear whether he is an enemy or an ally of Arthur. Geoffrey of Monmouth introduces the notion of Mordred's usurpation of the throne and his adulterous relationship with Guinevere while Arthur is fighting his continental wars. Geoffrey names Mordred as one of two sons of Lot and Anna (the other being Gawain). Mordred in turn has two sons who survive him but are killed by Constantine, Arthur's successor. In the thirteenth-century Vulgate Cycle, Mordred is the son of Arthur by his half-sister, who is Lot's wife. Although, in the Vulgate Mort Artu, it is Agravain who accuses Lancelot and Guinevere of adultery and leads the knights who trap them in the queen's chamber, Mordred betrays Arthur's trust when he is left in charge of the kingdom and the queen by forging a letter said to be from a dying Arthur declaring Mordred king and urging him to marry Guinevere.

In the final battle of Salisbury Plain, Arthur kills Mordred but is fatally wounded by him. Mordred leaves behind two sons, the elder called Melehan and the younger unnamed. Bors kills Melehan, who has slain Lionel; and Lancelot kills the younger son. In Malory's Morte d'Arthur, Mordred is the illegitimate son of Arthur and Morgause. When Arthur, who is unaware that she is related to him when they sleep together, learns that he has had a child by his half-sister, he attempts to kill Mordred by condemning all the children born on May Day to be set adrift on the sea. But his son survives when the ship he is in breaks up and he is cast up on the shore and found by a good man, who raises him until he is fourteen. Even before Mordred accuses Lancelot and Guinevere and plans to trap them, his villainy is clear. When Gawain and his brothers treacherously attack and slay Lamorak, it is Mordred who gives him a fatal wound in the back.

While Arthur is besieging Lancelot's castle in France, Mordred forges letters saying that Arthur is dead, claims the throne, and intends to marry Guinevere. In the final battle, Arthur gives Mordred a fatal wound; but Mordred thrusts himself up the length of Arthur's spear so he can strike his father. What is the Round Table? The twelfth-century chronicler Wace first introduces the notion of the Round Table, which he says Arthur had made so that all of the noble barons whom he attracted to his court would be equally placed and served and none could boast that he had a higher position at the table than the others. Layamon expands on this notion, describing a riot at which many nobles vie for place and precedence at Arthur's table. A skilled craftsman then offers to make Arthur a table that will seat more than sixteen hundred and at which high and low will be on an equal footing because the table is round.

According to the prose rendition of Robert de Boron's Merlin and the thirteenth-century Vulgate Cycle, Uther Pendragon, instructed by Merlin, established the Round Table to symbolize the table of the Last Supper and the Grail Table established by Joseph of Arimathea at the command of the Holy Spirit. Uther gives the Round Table to Guinevere's father Leodegan, who in turn gives it to Arthur when he weds Guinevere. The number of seats at the Round Table varies in different sources, sometimes being said to seat twelve knights and the king, sometimes as many as 150. The Round Table has come to stand not only for the physical object at which Arthur and his knights sat but also for the order of knighthood and the code to which the knights committed themselves. The symbolic nature of the Round Table survives even into the youth groups of the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. The founders of one of those clubs, the Knights of King Arthur, saw the roundness of Arthur's table and the equality it implied as representing 'democracy under leadership' and thus an ideal structure for a club for boys. What do we know about the sword Excalibur?

Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, and Layamon all observe that Arthur's sword Caliburn was forged on the Isle of Avalon. In Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur, Excalibur is the name given to the sword Arthur receives from the Lady of the Lake and entrusts to Bedivere to return to the water after his final battle. Malory, following his French source, explains the name Excalibur as meaning 'Kutte [Cut] Steele'. (There is only one place in the Morte where the sword drawn from the stone is referred to as Excalibur: in his battle with the kings who will not accept him, Arthur pulls the sword from the stone, on Merlin's advice, only when he is losing the battle. When he draws 'his swerd Excalibur', it gives the light of thirty torches and helps him to put his enemies to flight.) When this sword from the stone breaks in two as Arthur fights Pellinore, Merlin saves Arthur by casting an enchantment over Pellinore and then takes the king to receive another sword, Excalibur, from the Lady of the Lake.

Merlin tells Arthur that Excalibur's scabbard is even more valuable than the sword itself because while he wears it he will not lose any blood or be severely wounded. Morgan le Fay, to whom Arthur has entrusted the care of Excalibur, gives the sword to her lover Accolon to use against Arthur. Provided with a counterfeit Excalibur, Arthur is saved by Nyneve (a character sometimes called Vivien, Niniane, or Nimue). Morgan then steals the scabbard and throws it into a lake so it can no longer protect Arthur. Excalibur must be returned to the water at the end of Arthur's life, a task assigned to Bedivere in Malory's account-but to others in different medieval versions of Arthur's story. What was the Holy Grail? The Holy Grail is generally considered to be the cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper and the vessel used by Joseph of Arimathea to catch his blood as he hung on the cross.

This significance, however, was introduced into the Arthurian legends by Robert de Boron in his verse romance Joseph d'Arimathie (sometimes also called Le Roman de l'Estoire dou Graal), which was probably written in the last decade of the twelfth century or the first few years of the thirteenth. In earlier sources as well as in some later ones, the Grail is sometimes something quite different. The term 'grail' comes from the Latin gradale, which means a dish brought to the table during various stages (Latin 'gradus') or courses of a meal. In Chrétien de Troyes and other early writers, the term 'grail' suggests such a plate. Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival (first decade of the thirteenth century) presents the Grail as a stone which provides sustenance and prevents anyone who beholds it from dying within that week. In medieval romance, the Grail was said to have been brought to Glastonbury in Britain by Joseph of Arimathea and his followers. In the time of Arthur, the quest for the Grail was the highest spiritual pursuit.

For Chrétien, author of Perceval, and his continuators, Perceval is the knight who must achieve the Grail. For some other French authors, as for Malory, Galahad is the chief Grail knight, though others (Perceval and Bors in Malory's Morte d'Arthur) also achieve the quest. Where was Camelot? Camelot is an imaginary place and thus it is perhaps pointless to speak of its location. In literary sources, it is usually situated in the south of England. Some have speculated that if Arthur actually existed he would have needed a base of operations. John Leland identified Camelot with Cadbury Castle, a hill fort in Somerset. Excavations carried out at the site in 1966-1970 confirmed that this large hill fort (with 1200 yards of perimeter surrounding an eighteen-acre enclosure and rising about 250 feet above the surrounding countryside) was refortified in the Arthurian era and was occupied by a powerful leader and his followers. In many medieval texts Arthur holds court at Caerleon or some other city.

Camelot is first mentioned in the twelfth century in Chrétien de Troyes's Lancelot. In the thirteenth-century Vulgate Cycle, Camelot is said to have been converted by the son of Joseph of Arimathea, Josephus, who had built there the Church of St. Stephen, in which some texts say Arthur and Guinevere were married. Camelot becomes the principal city of Arthur's realm and remains so in many, though not all, later texts. In his Le Morte d'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory identifies Camelot as Winchester. What modern allusions are there to Camelot? The image most modern readers have of Camelot coincides with Tennyson's description of it in "The Lady of Shalott" as "many-tower'd Camelot." More recently, largely through the influence of T. H. White, Camelot has come to be associated with the values that Arthur and his realm are believed to have represented (White's 'Might for Right'). Because of John F. Kennedy's fondness for the play Camelot and an interest in the legends that originated with his childhood reading of a version of Malory, John F.

Kennedy's his presidency has been referred to as 'Camelot'. Actually, the identification between Kennedy and Camelot first occurred soon after Kennedy's death, when Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy urged her friend, reporter and historian Theodore H. White, to label her late husband's historical myth in specifically Arthurian terms. Other historians also associated Kennedy's presidency, particularly some of its more idealistic programs, with the legend of Arthur. The moral overtones of Camelot are reflected in other areas as well, but sometimes 'Camelot' is used only to represent an ideal place. share this page JFK's Five Favorite Songs & What They Tell Us About Him | The Huffington Post JFK's Five Favorite Songs & What They Tell Us About Him 11/22/2013 09:09 am ET | Updated Jan 25, 2014 120 Timothy English Author, 'POPOLOGY: The Music of the Era in the Lives of Four Icons of the 1960s' In the flood of books and television documentaries released in conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of President John F.

Kennedy's assassination, too little attention is paid to the significant role that music played in JFK's life. It's worth remembering that musical associations are bound to be some of the first things we think about when JFK comes to mind: Camelot, his friendship with Frank Sinatra, Marilyn's rendition of "Happy Birthday," and the like. Indeed JFK would forever associate pop songs with the two great tragedies of his young life: the deaths of his brother Joe and his sister Kathleen. Bing Crosby's "I'll Be Seeing You" was playing on the radio in the Kennedy's Hyannis Port house when the family received the brutal news that Joe had perished in an airplane crash while on a dangerous mission in 1944. JFK was young congressman in 1948 listening to the Finian's Rainbow Broadway cast album in his Washington apartment when he learned that his beloved sister "Kick" had been killed in a plane crash in France. The song "How are Things in Glocca Morra?" played as he broke down in tears. Ted Kennedy wrote in his memoirs that hardly anyone but family and friends knew that JFK had a nice singing voice and that he regularly sang at family gatherings, often accompanied by his mother's piano playing.

Author Steven Levy recently said this about the music on our iPods: "It's not just what you like, it's who you are." JFK never owned an iPod, but knowing the songs he liked best and understanding why they were important to him can give us insight into who he was. These were his five favorite songs: 1. "Blue Skies" as sung by Frank Sinatra. "Blue Skies" became one JFK's best-loved songs when he was a young man, and remained so throughout his life. Composed in the 1920's by Irving Berlin, "Blue Skies" was popularized by several of JFK's favorite performers: Benny Goodman and Bing Crosby in the 1930s and Frank Sinatra in 1946. The song captures the optimistic and carefree attitude of the future president. Indeed, in later years Kennedy aides would describe clear blue skies as "Kennedy weather" because of its positive effect on the candidate and the crowds that came to see him.

The hope and optimism that JFK inspired in his countrymen as president are reflected in the confident faith in the future reflected in "Blue Skies." JFK was a huge fan of Sinatra's music, often playing his albums in the White House. He attended his Sinatra and the Rat Pack's show at the Sands in Las Vegas in February 1960, and Sinatra re-recorded his 1959 hit. Despite a widely publicized 1962 falling out between the two camps, when Sinatra's casino license was revoked by the Nevada Gambling Control Board in 1963, JFK tried to help. During a September 28 visit to Las Vegas, JFK asked Nevada Governor Grant Sawyer, "Aren't you guys being a little tough on Frank?" 2. "I Love Paris" as performed by Les Baxter and his Orchestra. "I Love Paris" is from the Broadway showCan-Can by Cole Porter. "I Love Paris" was another song that JFK loved and another that is associated with a carefree time. In her 1997 memoir Love, Jack Gunilla von Post detailed her previously unknown affair with JFK. In the book she recounts Kennedy's visit with her in Sweden in the summer of 1955.

She depicts JFK as a sensitive man happy to be away from his public and family obligations back home. Enjoying a bit of anonymity for perhaps the last time in his life, JFK sang "I Love Paris" as they drove through the Swedish countryside. 3. "Camelot" as sung by Richard Burton. Inevitably we must mention the song most associated with the Kennedy legend. Indeed "Camelot" lent its very name to that legend. Most of us will recall that JFK's name only became associated with the Lerner and Loewe musical Camelot in the wake of his death. Camelot was built around the fictional tale of King Arthur and Lancelot. In an interview just a week after the assassination, Jackie told author Theodore H. White that JFK used to play side two of the Camelot cast album before turning in at night. "If Ever I Would Leave You" sung by Robert Goulet was the first song, and "Camelot" sung by Richard Burton was the last.

Jack called "Camelot" "the song he (JFK) loved best." Jackie insisted that this story be included in White's article, telling him: "They'll be great presidents again, but they'll never be another Camelot." Indeed, there are many connections that bond Kennedy and Camelot, including the fact that Lerner was a prep school classmate of JFK's who organized his 1963 birthday show at the Waldorf in NY. Lerner and Loewe graced the cover of Time magazine on Election Day 1960. Camelot opened on Broadway a few weeks later, starting its run exactly as JFK was about to take office, making the show and administration contemporaries. The sense of loss felt to the public and the association between the song and the show was evident to all asCamelot toured the U.S. in the months after JFK's death. When the houselights came up following the "Camelot" finale, the audience was often crying en masse. 4. "I Believe in You" as sung by Robert Morse.

Less known is JFK's love of another Broadway show of the era, Frank Loesser's How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and the song "I Believe in You." JFK saw the show in New York in early 1961 and he had the original cast album in his White House record collection. We know the latter fact courtesy of Mimi Alford, who wrote of her affair with JFK in her 2012 memoir Once Upon a Secret. Alford recalls that JFK loved the song "I Believe in You," noting that he was especially fond of the way Robert Morse sang the lines about being a "seeker of wisdom and truth." The show is now forever seen as a Mad Men-era time capsule, rightly associated with the JFK administration. 5. "September Song" as sung by Walter Huston. JFK's favorite song was undoubtedly the wistful "September Song." Composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, "September Song" was written specifically for gravel-voiced actor Walter Huston to sing in the 1938 Broadway show Knickerbocker Holiday.

Although both Bing Crosby and Sinatra recorded the song during the '40s, it was Huston's version that topped the charts after it was heard in the 1950 movie September Affair. In the lyric the older narrator explains to a younger lover that his time is short and he can't play "the waiting game." He lists the months of the year as a metaphor for life passing by quickly mentioning "September... November." At JFK's inaugural gala in Washington the night before he took office, comedian Jimmy Durante -- who had a voice that made Huston sound like Caruso -- added a strangely somber (and eerie prescient) note to the otherwise exuberant proceedings when he offered his own version of "September Song." JFK's lifelong friend Lemoyne Billings would later state that by the time he reached his early thirties, JFK had seen so much death and had been sick so often that he began "living for the moment, treating each day as though it were his last, demanding of life intensity, adventure and pleasure." Many commentators would note that JFK refused to "wait his turn" and was already planning his White House run while still only a first term senator.

JFK sang "September Song" at numerous family gathering through the years, sometimes even imitating Huston's voice as he did so. His close aide Dave Powers later wrote that JFK sang "September Song" after dinner at his family's Palm Beach mansion on Saturday before he went to Dallas. Powers noted that he sang it "better that usual" that night.

More stories and insights into the world of JFK and four other icons can be found his just released book "POPOLOGY: The Music of the Era in the Lives of Four Icons of the 1960s," which can be purchased on More: Frederick Loewe, Alan Jay Lerner, Julie Andrews, Mary Sue Berry, Robert Goulet, Richard Burton, Roddy McDowall - Camelot - Amazon.com Music By Eric Paddon on April 12, 2001 Format: Audio CD The original cast of "Camelot", Richard Burton as Arthur, Julie Andrews as Guinevere, Robert Goulet as Lancelot, is one of those rare coming togethers of great talent in a Broadway show that all you can do is wonder why in God's name (a) the show wasn't recorded in its entirety back then on film or tape and (b) none of these participants reprised their roles in the dreadful 1967 movie version. What was Joshua Logan smoking when he insisted on Richard Harris instead of Burton? It remains one of the most baffling stories in the history of Broadway musicals mucked up by Hollywood.

This CD of the original cast is therefore all the more precious because its your only chance to sample this wonderful assemblage of talent performing the best Lerner-Loewe score next to "My Fair Lady". The remastered CD is a must, putting the songs back in their right order and sounding much better than the earlier CD pressing did. Ultimately, the CD gets only four stars from me not because of its presentation, but because of the manner in which this recording was first produced back in 1960. Goddard Lieberson, the head of Columbia Records who produced cast recordings back then was notorious for damaging the essence of what a cast recording was supposed to be, i.e. a document of the show and its music and instead often made some very bad tamperings with the material in order to achieve a supposedly "purer" musical listening experience. This meant (a) always eliminating all dialogue snippets that led into a song or was spoken between verses (b) sometimes eliminating whole musical sections that didn't sound "musical" enough and were more stage bound.

In the case of "Camelot" this supposedly more "artistic" decision results in the loss of Julie Andrews lines and contributions in the title song so that it's a Burton solo. We also lose Burton's angry prelude to "How To Handle A Woman" where he rails against Merlin, and finally the ending which reprises the title song has been tampered into something it wasn't and never was on stage. Goddard Lieberson's aversion to dialogue from the play in this case not only harmed the integrity of this recording as a document of the play, but also robs us the ability to hear how really good Burton, Andrews etc were in their performances as well as their singing. The end result is still magnificent in the form its presented, but should have been more definitive than it turned out to be. By TundraBee on June 8, 2000 Format: Audio CD Ah, the magical metaphors! Lerner & Lowe's wonderous Broadway musical of the Days of King Arthur and the Round Table has since become forever linked to the JFK presidency. Here we have the joyous voices of Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, Robert Goulet and Roddy McDowall. The rapture!

And then the fall. Contrast King Arthur's/Richard Burton's uplifting version of the "Camelot" song (#5) with his Finale Ultimo (Camelot Reprise - #18) So there you are, cruising along, with the CD cranked up, reveling, and the last song comes on. Unless you are in a particularly buoyant mood, that last song can produce a profound wave of melancholy and the people next to you at the stop light will wonder why you are crying. "... Ask every person if he's heard the story & tell it strong & clear if he has not - That once there was a fleeting wisp of Glory called Camelot. By Tommy Peter on January 25, 2000 Format: Audio CD Though I never saw this show on Broadway, this cast album gives me a very good impression. The words and music really are perfectly entwined, and the songs are really good, much more memorable than they were when sung in the film, (though the film, IMHO, is still pretty good). What's really great about this recording is the great voices you hear singing these songs.

Julie Andrews is surprisingly operetic as Guenevere, but nevertheless is by turns, vibrant, lusty, and sad, and is always good. Robert Goulet as Lancelot has a robust voice that comes in handy during "C'est Moi" and makes "If Ever I Would Leave You," a beautiful song anyway, a joy to listen to. Roddy McDowell as Mordred sparks the album with his one song, "The Seven Deadly Virtues." You even get to hear John Cullum; he's one of the knights in "Then You May Take Me to the Fair." As for Richard Burton's Arthur, he does struggle a bit at first, talk-singing "I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight" and the first part of "Camelot" a bit shakily. However, he pulls himself together to give a great performance of "How to Handle a Woman" and, though he goes right back to talking, is still powerful in the final reprise of "Camelot." We truly shouldn't let this show be forgot, or this cast album. It was one brief shining moment of many in Broadway's history.

By LightJesusMaryLover on June 26, 1998 Format: Audio CD "Camelot" is one of my 3 favorite musicals & the definitive version is this one, the 1960 Original Broadway Cast w/Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, & Robert Goulet. However, the old CD version of this was so poor(filled w/hiss & highly-compressed)that I held on to my LP copy. So this digitally-remastered version is a welcome find!(no hiss or compression; I even hear instrum- ents in the background I've not heard before). And what more can be sd about Lerner & Loewe's most glorious & varied score or about this moving show about idealism brought down by the baser elements of human nature? A MUST-have!!! Camelot Remembered: John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) - YouTube Camelot Remembered: John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented.

This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Nov 1, 2013 On 22 November 2013 it will be 50 years since that fateful day in 1963 when U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Following his death, the President's time in the White House became known as 'Camelot' - the title of a popular 1960s Broadway musical which portrayed the legend of King Arthur and a mood of potential and promise for the future. The President's widow, Jackie Kennedy, said the musical was JFK's favourite and she quoted lines from the show's theme song -".... Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot..." I have prepared a 3-minute musical and pictorial tribute to remember JFK... and Camelot. I hope you enjoy... JFK: Of Camelot and conspiracy JFK: Of Camelot and conspiracy By William Prochnau November 20, 2013 Within an hour after President John F.

Kennedy was shot on November 22, 1963, Washington became a ghost town. It was still early on a Friday afternoon but, except in hidden security centers, no one in this power-centric, workaholic town had any idea what to do. The phones overloaded and stopped working periodically. Almost all government stopped working, too. I was a 26-year-old rookie reporter from Seattle. Two of the country’s most powerful senators came from my state, including Senator Henry M. Jackson, who had been Robert F. Kennedy’s choice over Lyndon B. Johnson to be his brother’s running mate in 1960. So it was natural that I would be drawn to the Old Senate Office Building — the Old S.O.B, we called it, for the acronym and the pun but mainly because it housed the expansive empires of the senior senators of the day. Usually bustling with power-brokers, lobbyists and favor-seekers, the hallways were empty except for a cluster of staffers in front of Jackson’s office. By the time I got to the Capitol, the Senate and House of Representatives had adjourned and most senators and congressmen had closed their offices and gone home. Jackson, however, remained.

His wife, Helen, was out of town, and he dreaded going alone to their Washington apartment. So his staff stayed with him in the Old S.O.B., talking in clutches outside in the marble hallway. For me, two moments resonate as clearly today as they did in 1963. After a few minutes Jackson emerged from his office and asked me, “Do you want to take a walk?” Of course I wanted to walk with Jackson. A Cold Warrior like Kennedy, a good friend if not a Hyannisport buddy, who had joined in his roughhouse Georgetown softball games when both were still among Washington’s most eligible bachelors, Jackson was as close to Kennedy as anyone I would find that day in the psychologically blitzed capital. It turned out to be a peculiar walk — one that showed he was as discombobulated as the rest of us. We went to the Senate payroll office, where Jackson corrected a $6 error in his paycheck. Despite my efforts, he didn’t want to talk about the assassination or what might have been. Jackson was as spun out of his orbit as the rest of us and I was simply his foil to level life out for a few minutes.

The second moment occurred back at his office where, like everyone, Brian Corcoran, Jackson’s press secretary, tried to assess the day’s impact. “The real tragedy is that Kennedy will barely be remembered 50 years from now,” Corcoran said. “His presidency was cut too short and he didn’t have time to accomplish anything.” To be sure, at the time of Kennedy’s death, most of his landmark New Frontier legislation, including the Civil Rights Act, was bogged down in a Congress dominated by Southerners — who did not look kindly on Kennedy or his program. He will never go down as one of America’s great presidents. Yet his hold on America’s imagination remains as durable as it was the day he died. On the 50th anniversary of the assassination, publishing houses have flooded us with another deluge of books, with titles ranging from The Kennedy Half Century to Camelot’s Court: Inside the Kennedy White House to Who Really Killed Kennedy? The New York Times, in a recent article ironically headlined: “ Kennedy, the Elusive President ,” put the tally of Kennedy books since his death at 40,000.

Television, bolstered by 24/7 cable channels that didn’t exist during his life, is adding to the torrent with a slew of retrospectives in the run-up to Friday’s anniversary. What made the Kennedy legacy such a powerful and lasting American obsession? Theodore H. White, who wrote the classic Making of the President 1960, argued that Kennedy believed that heroes made history — and cast himself in that role. To my generation, he was undeniably a hero, albeit a flawed one. The youngest man ever elected president (at 43), he was a phenom — modern, handsome and princely, given to heroic words and gestures. Glamorous, he was doubly so alongside his wife, Jacqueline, who turned the White House into an American version of the court at Versailles for parties honoring the literati. He was a celebrity president made for television before television itself quite knew what it was made for. The twin pillars that keep the Kennedy saga alive — Camelot and conspiracy — were embedded in Washington’s marble within days after JFK’s death.

Together, they transformed the story into a Shakespearian tragedy: a young nobleman cut down at the apex of his and his empire’s power, with his slaying forever muddled by a cast of powerful and shady characters that prevents the facts of the crime from ever truly being resolved. Almost immediately after his death, in a remarkable and manipulative effort, Jackie Kennedy planted the-young-prince-in-Camelot imagery so deep that it has held up for a half-century, despite the onslaught of contradictions about JFK, the flawed man, that emerged in later years. Camelot, a hit Broadway musical about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, played through most of his presidency. But it never was attached to Kennedy’s name before he died — a lesson in how legends are made . Jackie, trying to head off assessments of her man by what she called “bitter people,” made certain it became the romantic theme of their time in the White House. Seven days after her husband was shot, she called Theodore White, journalist, historian and — most important — a friend, to Hyannisport for an exclusive four-hour interview.

There she wove the myth of Camelot into the “reality” of the Kennedy years, even hovering over White to edit his story back on to the Camelot track, as he phoned it to his editors at Life magazine. On December 6, 1963, Life published the essay with its emphasis on the Camelot years and the lyrics that Jackie said her husband played on his old Victrola almost every night before going to sleep: “Don’t let it be forgot, That once there was a spot For one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.” It was a heroic, if somewhat childlike, view of a president who inspired a nation with his youth and vigor. (That too was a myth because he and his troupe hid his debilitating Addison’s disease and assorted other ailments.) At the time of the assassination, Kennedy’s approval rating was 70 percent, and it remains the highest in the history of presidential polling. He was the first and still is the most compelling of the media presidents. He simply romanced the little black-and-white tube, arguably winning office by beating Richard M. Nixon in the first televised presidential debate and keeping his critics at bay with wit and charm in regular televised press conferences.

Politicians, Democrat and Republican, have learned to use the medium since, but none more effectively. Americans took Kennedy into their homes — and liked him. The Camelot image has suffered over the years since , as serious historians examined the downsides to his presidency — he essentially began our long Vietnam nightmare. Others looked at the anti-heroism of his compulsive, almost serial womanizing. Even White corrected the story he and Jackie had created in Hyannisport. By 1978, White said he had misread history somewhat. “The magic Camelot of John F. Kennedy never existed,” White wrote in his book, In Search of History. Yet there was something to the concoction — because “one brief shining moment” still stands as the metaphor for Kennedy’s brief presidency. Camelot represented optimism and possibility. Kennedy created the Peace Corps, he aspired to send a man to the moon. Government was not the enemy.

Forever frozen in his prime, he harkens to a simpler time, before the events that complicated America’s place in the world after his death: the tumultuous ‘60s, the quagmire that Vietnam became, Watergate, terrorism, Afghanistan and Iraq, and now the endless, deadlocked power struggle and destructiveness that has become de rigueur in Washington political life. Kennedy gave Americans the idea that we could do better. That we could believe in something. Robert Dallek, the presidential historian and author of the new Kennedy biography, Camelot’s Court, summed it up succinctly in the New York Times: Americans admire presidents who give them hope . The other timeless pillar of the legend — the conspiracy theories about Kennedy’s killing — may keep his presidency alive even longer than Camelot. Future generations are not more likely to find a satisfying answer, if one exists, than we have in these 50 years. But that won’t stop them from trying . Americans are not good at handling randomness. They want answers that add up. The conspiracy theories really took flight the moment Jack Ruby, a seedy, two-bit nightclub owner, killed the killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, two days after Kennedy died.

A lone shooter with a $12.78 mail-order rifle taking down the leader of the free world didn’t add up. But two random events, the second one closing off the most logical line of inquiry, were just too much for the public. After Oswald’s death, there was no shutting the conspiracists down — no matter how far out they wandered. Mark Lane, a left-wing lawyer, began criticizing the work of the official assassination investigation, the Warren Commission, as soon as it was formed. He broadly attacked the commission’s final report in a best-selling 1966 book, Rush to Judgment. The theories cascaded downward from there, to the wild warps of Oliver Stone’s 1991 Hollywood blockbuster, JFK. Today, two-thirds of Americans — most of them either too young to remember or born since the dire doings of November 22, 1963 — continue to believe the killing was a multi-person plot. Some of the most powerful leaders of that time were conspiracy believers. RFK believed. So did Johnson. Many actually thought Johnson was part of the plot. It was all wild speculation, born out of the multiple passions of the day. It is impossible to disprove most conspiracy theories.

Events have provided the Kennedy conspiracist with an especially compelling playbill of characters that makes the story epic when laid against the background of a fallen idol. Could the bard himself conjure up historical suspects as compelling as Fidel Castro, whom Kennedy tried to have poisoned; the mafia, with whom he shared a boss’s girlfriend; the Russians, with whom he was beginning the arms race that would spend them into bankruptcy; Lyndon Johnson, who had everything to gain and gained it; Cuban exiles, who felt betrayed by the Bay of Pigs; J. Edgar Hoover, the CIA? Two months before Dallas, I made an 11-state cross-country trip with Kennedy. On September 24, 1963, we traveled by helicopter from Duluth, Minnesota, to Ashland, Wisconsin, crossing Lake Superior in a violent late-summer thunderstorm. It was a frightening trip. One of the convoy’s eight choppers was forced down onto an island in the lake. Tom Wicker, a seasoned New York Times reporter, sat across from me. He turned as ashen-faced as I was in the bucking press helicopter. “He’s a terrible risk-taker,” Wicker muttered unhappily.

Kennedy’s speaking platform in little Ashland was an outdoor stand surrounded by the crowd. As he prepared to speak, a young woman, maybe 22 or 23, rushed up the stairs and grabbed the president in an adulating bear hug. Kennedy grinned but flinched and the Secret Service quickly pulled the woman away. Wicker and I looked at each other and shook our heads. Later, we thought it was like looking into the future. It was so easy to kill this first of our rock star presidents. Perhaps that incident in Ashland is the reason I have less trouble than most in accepting the Oswald, single-shooter theory. He was no more random than the young woman in Ashland. We live our own common lives touched at pivotal times by far more random events than conspiratorial ones. ILLUSTRATION: Matt Mahurin PHOTO (INSERT 1): President John F. Kennedy points to a reporter at a news conference, November 20, 1962. REUTERS/Abbie Rowe/National Park Service/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. PHOTO (INSERT 2): President John F.

Kennedy and first lady Jackie Kennedy attend a dinner in honor of Andre Malraux, cultural affairs minister France, in Washington, on May 11, 1962. REUTERS/Robert Knudsen/The White House/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. PHOTO (INSERT 3): President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy confer at the White House, West Wing Colonnade, October 3, 1962. Cecil Stoughton/The White House/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum « Previous Post Inventing Camelot: How Jackie Kennedy shaped her husband’s legacy | New York Post Inventing Camelot: How Jackie Kennedy shaped her husband’s legacy Inside Zapruder family's complicated history with JFK film Even in the thick of tragedy, Jackie Kennedy was aware of her husband’s legacy. In his new book, “End of Days,” author James Swanson reveals how the first lady knew how she wanted history to remember JFK — even, as this excerpt reveals, dictating an article to Life magazine: In the hours after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, more than one person suggested to Jackie that she change clothes.

Her pink suit, white gloves and stockings were caked with dried blood — the bright red, wet blood spilled two hours ago had, after exposure to oxygen, solidified and taken on a darker color. Each time someone asked her, the more adamant she became. “Everybody kept saying to me to put a cold towel around my head and wipe the blood off.” No, she insisted, she would not change. “I want them to see what they’ve done,” she repeated more than once. To prepare, Jackie retired to a small bathroom. There, she said, “I saw myself in the mirror; my whole face was spattered with blood and hair . . . I wiped it off with Kleenex . . . then one second later I thought, why did I wash the blood off? I should have left it there, to let them see what they’ve done . . . If I’d just had the blood and caked hair when they took the picture . . . I should have kept the blood on.” Some of Jackie’s aides were angry that Johnson wanted her photographed at the swearing in and surprised that she agreed. But Jackie said, “I think I ought to.

In the light of history, it would be better if I was there.” Lyndon Johnson was to be sworn in on the plane before it flew back to Washington. It was dark when Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force Base outside the nation’s capital at 6:05 p.m. Crowds of mourners had flocked there to watch the jet land and to see Kennedy’s flag-draped coffin removed from the plane. Robert Kennedy, members of the cabinet and senior government and military officials stood and watched. The president’s brother rushed to the plane and boarded it through a front door. He ran down the aisle, brushing past everyone in his path, including the new president. There was only one person in the world Bobby wanted to see, and she was at the back of the plane, sitting by a flag-draped coffin. They found each other and embraced. “Hi Jackie, I’m here,” was all he could say. The American people were about to get their first look at Jackie Kennedy since the assassination almost five hours ago. A rear door on the plane opened. An elevated platform was put in place to receive the coffin. Then Jackie Kennedy appeared in the doorway. Standing next to her was her brother-in-law, Robert Kennedy.

The image was confusing. He had not been in Dallas, so how was it that he was exiting Air Force One with Jackie? All across the country, millions of people staring at their television screens gasped when they saw the bloodstains on her clothing. Jackie had still not changed out of the clothes she had worn in Dealey Plaza. On television screens, as she walked to the navy ambulance, viewers saw that her legs were smeared with copious amounts of blood. She wanted to sear these images into the collective memory of the American people so that they would never forget. It worked. To this day, decades after the assassination, the mere sight of an image of her in that suit triggers flashbacks in the minds of every person who remembers November 22, 1963. John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy arrive at Love Field airport in Dallas, Nov. 22, 1963 ‘Silly Little Communist’ From Andrews Air Force Base, President Kennedy’s body was not yet ready to go home to the White House. First, accompanied by Jackie, a navy ambulance took him to Bethesda Naval Hospital, across the Maryland border from Washington. There would be an autopsy to document the official cause of death.

Kennedy had been a naval officer, so Jackie, even before Air Force One had touched down, chose Bethesda Naval Hospital. When Jackie entered the hospital, she was taken to a waiting room on the 17th floor. As she settled in for a long night, the president’s brother Robert told her that a suspect had been arrested for her husband’s murder. “They think they found the man who did it,” the attorney general said. “He says he’s a communist.” Jackie was aghast, and she said to her mother, who had joined her in Bethesda, “He didn’t even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights . . . It’s — it had to be some silly little communist.” The next day, Jackie picked out a grave site at Arlington National Cemetery and began planning her husband’s public funeral. With Abraham Lincoln’s funeral as her inspiration, researchers had set to work. They uncovered historical details that had been forgotten since the Civil War, including the exact way that the White House entrances and East Room chandeliers had been draped in mourning with ribbons of black crepe paper. One last-minute request Jackie made was for an “eternal flame” beside the grave.

She said she wanted to light a flame at the climax of the service in Arlington that would burn forever in memory of her husband. She recalled the day when she and the president had toured the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg. There, at the Eternal Light Peace Memorial dedicated by President Roosevelt in 1938, she had seen an eternal flame — a gas-powered fire that burned day and night, around the clock — that illuminated the top of the tall monument. At Arlington, army engineers had one built at ground level next to President Kennedy’s grave site in less than 24 hours, and it was ready in time for Jackie to light it on Monday afternoon. After the funeral service at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, Jacqueline Kennedy and her children, standing outside the church, watched the honor guard carry the coffin down the steps. A military band played “Hail to the Chief.” Jackie bent down and whispered in her little boy’s ear, “John, you can salute Daddy now and say goodbye to him.” John Kennedy Jr. saluted his father’s coffin just as he had seen soldiers in uniform do. It was a heartbreaking gesture that became one of the most unforgettable images of the funeral.

‘One Brief Shining Moment’ The day after Thanksgiving, on Friday, Nov. 29, Jackie called Theodore White, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the bestselling book The “Making of the President: 1960.” White and John Kennedy had gotten to know each other, and the president had admired him. When Jackie called, White was not home. As he remembered, he “was taken from the dentist’s chair by a telephone call from my mother saying that Jackie Kennedy was calling and needed me.” Theodore White He called her back. “I found myself talking to Jacqueline Kennedy, who said there was something that she wanted Life magazine to say to the country, and I must do it.” She told White she would send a Secret Service car to fetch him in New York and drive him up to Hyannisport. But when White called the Secret Service he was, he wrote, “curtly informed that Mrs. Kennedy was no longer the president’s wife, and she could give them no orders for cars. They were crisp.” It was impossible to fly that weekend. A nor’easter or a hurricane was coming up over Cape Cod. So White hired a car and driver and headed north into the New England storm.

He called his editors at Life to tell them about his exclusive scoop, but they told him the next issue was about to go to press. They warned him it would cost $30,000 an hour to hold the presses open for his story. It was unprecedented. But they would do it. This meant that the most important photojournalism magazine in America would be standing still and delaying the printing of its next issue for a story that had not yet been written and would be based on an interview that had not yet even been conducted. Still, an exclusive interview with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy was so coveted, Life was willing to do almost anything. White arrived, he recalled, “at about 8:30 in the driving rain.” Jackie welcomed him and instructed her houseguests, who included Dave Powers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. and JFK’s old pal Chuck Spalding, that she wanted to speak with him alone. As soon as she sat down, White began taking notes as fast as his hand could scribble: “Composure . . . beautiful . . . dressed in trim black slacks . . . beige pullover sweater . . . eyes wider than pools . . . calm voice.” Then she spoke.

“She had asked me to Hyannisport,” White discovered, “because she wanted me to make certain that Jack was not forgotten by history.” White was stunned. How could anyone ever forget John F. Kennedy? White was now ready to be hypnotized by a master mesmerist. Jackie complained that “bitter people” were already writing stories, attempting to measure her husband with a laundry list of his achievements and failures. Jackie hated that. They would never capture the real man. White asked her to explain, and then, for the next 3¹/₂ hours, she delivered a jumbled, almost stream-of-consciousness narrative about Dallas, the blood, the head wound, the wedding ring, the hospital, and how she kissed him goodbye. It was only a week after the assassination. Then she got to the reason she had summoned White: “But there’s this one thing I wanted to say . . . I kept saying to Bob, I’ve got to talk to somebody, I’ve got to see somebody, I want to say this one thing, it’s been almost an obsession with me, all I keep thinking of is this line from a musical comedy, it’s been an obsession with me.” She confided to White.

“At night, before we’d go to sleep . . . Jack liked to play some records . . . and the song he loved most came at the very end of this record, the last side of Camelot, sad Camelot.” She was talking about the popular Broadway musical fantasy about King Arthur’s court. “The lines he loved to hear,” Jackie revealed, were, “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.” In case White failed to understand, she repeated her story. “She wanted to make sure,” the journalist remembered, “that the point came clear.” Jackie went on: “There’ll be great presidents again — and the Johnsons are wonderful, they’ve been wonderful to me — but there’ll never be a Camelot again.” White wanted to continue to other subjects, “But [Jackie] came back to the idea that transfixed her: ‘Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief moment that was known as Camelot.’ ” She was determined to convince White that her husband’s presidency was a unique, magical and forever lost moment.

“And,” she proclaimed, “it will never be that way again.” President Kennedy was dead and buried in his grave, and she told the journalist she wanted to step out of the spotlight. “She said it is time people paid attention to the new president and the new first lady. But she does not want them to forget John F. Kennedy or read of him only in dusty or bitter histories: For one brief shining moment there was Camelot.” An Enduring Myth Around midnight, White went upstairs to write the story — Life needed it before he left Jackie. He came down around 2 a.m. and tried to dictate the story over a wall-hung telephone in her kitchen. He had already allowed her to pencil changes on the manuscript. As White spoke over the phone, Jackie overheard that his editors in New York wanted to tone down and cut some of the “Camelot” material. She glared at White and shook her head. One of his editors caught the stress in his voice and suspected Jackie. “Hey,” he asked White, “is she listening to this now?” It was Jacqueline Kennedy’s tour de force, her finest hour — actually more than five hours — of press manipulation.

She had summoned an influential, Pulitzer Prize–winning author to do her bidding — and like so many men she had mesmerized before, he did it. White violated all standards of journalism ethics by allowing the subject of a story to read it in advance — and edit it. But he was not acting as a journalist that night — he was serving as the awestruck courtier of a bereaved widow. And it worked. Thanks to Theodore White’s essay “For President Kennedy: An Epilogue,” which ran in the Dec. 6 issue of Life, Camelot and its brief shining moment became one of the most celebrated and enduring myths in American politics. To Jackie, the assassination symbolized an end of days, not just for her husband, but also for the nation. From the forthcoming book, “End of Days: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy” by James Swanson. Copyright (c) 2013 by James Swanson. To be published Tuesday by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Excerpted by permission. The grave’s eternal flame Share this:

Question: Which musical about King Arthur became a byword for the JFK years?
Answer: Camelot